'The Strand', Sandymount, Dublin, with an ice cream - it's too hot for coffee (28th May, 2012)
It all started last Monday. A hint of warmth on a surprisingly sunny day. People checked the weather forecasts when they got home and started posting pictures of the promised sun for what seemed to be five days in a row! But it wasn't just the pictures of happy suns that interested us - it was the appearance of long-awaited-above-19-degrees-temperatures. We were set for some summertime!
And each day, since that Monday, there have been delighted, surprised and grateful posts on facebook and folks' faces, as each day the sun has reappeared. There was one worrying morning when a mist prevailed for an hour or two - but the sun proved powerful enough to burn up the gloom and leave us with yet another day of delight.
It's heady stuff - this warmth and sunshine - in a country otherwise bereft of those two gifts for most of the year. People get a little giddy (on a national scale) and race out, throwing caution (restraint, inhibitions, sun protection, ice cream wrappers, and a little too much clothing) to the wind! They do things they wouldn't normally do. They have picnics. They sit on the grass. One family, perhaps believing grass-sitting to be a step too far, brought their entire set of wrought-iron garden furniture to the beach front yesterday. This beach front, at the end of my road, is normally filled (or not so filled if the winds are extreme) with determined walkers and joggers wrapped in warm clothing. This week, this outrageously warm week of 22, 23 and even 27 degrees, people have been walking, yes, but at a slower, more leisurely pace. Some will tell you it's because they're just too hot to move faster. Others because they're occupied with reminiscences of some 'sun-holiday' in Ibiza many moons ago. Others, it's down to the severe sunburn they received the day before which now inhibits any swift movement. Mostly it's because they're in no hurry for it (the 'summer') to be over.
While caution may be thrown to the wind, a certain sense of impending disappointment lies behind the euphoria. For they know, from years of experience, that this joy will not necessarily last beyond today. In fact, as this week wore on, I was not surprised to have a passenger in my car remark 'If this goes on much longer, we'll be crying out for rain'. Another lady commented that 'there should be a law against this kind of heat'. Indeed the law-enforcers had to be called upon to deal with a beach side skirmish yesterday between two 'tribes' of Dublin with a little too much of the 20-something degrees and a little more of the alcoholic thirst quenching that goes with it.
But we're all determined to enjoy this while it lasts. I walked along the Strand tonight with the intention of buying an ice cream to celebrate a week of summers (though to be truthful, I've been celebrating most of the seven days with an ice cream) only to find that they had sold out of all of my favourites and even those not-so-favourite fake pineapple ones. But there was no dampening of this warm-heartedness. That happiness that comes from the feeling of a warm breeze on bare arms - even as I walk past 'warning signs' of sun burnt, angry families who've had a little too much of a good thing.
That longing for warmth and sunshine is a longing for something we get a small taste of - every now and then - of heavenly perfection. Of a happiness that fills our hearts and our senses. That lifts our cares and burdens (at least for a little while - until we have to face the inevitable 'buyer's remorse' as we see the unopened, unassembled BBQ we purchased the day before the sun disappeared). This God-given joy of sunshine highlights a longing we have for the light and warmth of the presence of God with us. When the apostle John saw a vision of the future home of those belonging to the Lamb he saw that 'the city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendour into it.'
There'll be no fear of sunburn or sun-loss in that endless 'summer'.
It all started last Monday. A hint of warmth on a surprisingly sunny day. People checked the weather forecasts when they got home and started posting pictures of the promised sun for what seemed to be five days in a row! But it wasn't just the pictures of happy suns that interested us - it was the appearance of long-awaited-above-19-degrees-temperatures. We were set for some summertime!
And each day, since that Monday, there have been delighted, surprised and grateful posts on facebook and folks' faces, as each day the sun has reappeared. There was one worrying morning when a mist prevailed for an hour or two - but the sun proved powerful enough to burn up the gloom and leave us with yet another day of delight.
It's heady stuff - this warmth and sunshine - in a country otherwise bereft of those two gifts for most of the year. People get a little giddy (on a national scale) and race out, throwing caution (restraint, inhibitions, sun protection, ice cream wrappers, and a little too much clothing) to the wind! They do things they wouldn't normally do. They have picnics. They sit on the grass. One family, perhaps believing grass-sitting to be a step too far, brought their entire set of wrought-iron garden furniture to the beach front yesterday. This beach front, at the end of my road, is normally filled (or not so filled if the winds are extreme) with determined walkers and joggers wrapped in warm clothing. This week, this outrageously warm week of 22, 23 and even 27 degrees, people have been walking, yes, but at a slower, more leisurely pace. Some will tell you it's because they're just too hot to move faster. Others because they're occupied with reminiscences of some 'sun-holiday' in Ibiza many moons ago. Others, it's down to the severe sunburn they received the day before which now inhibits any swift movement. Mostly it's because they're in no hurry for it (the 'summer') to be over.
While caution may be thrown to the wind, a certain sense of impending disappointment lies behind the euphoria. For they know, from years of experience, that this joy will not necessarily last beyond today. In fact, as this week wore on, I was not surprised to have a passenger in my car remark 'If this goes on much longer, we'll be crying out for rain'. Another lady commented that 'there should be a law against this kind of heat'. Indeed the law-enforcers had to be called upon to deal with a beach side skirmish yesterday between two 'tribes' of Dublin with a little too much of the 20-something degrees and a little more of the alcoholic thirst quenching that goes with it.
But we're all determined to enjoy this while it lasts. I walked along the Strand tonight with the intention of buying an ice cream to celebrate a week of summers (though to be truthful, I've been celebrating most of the seven days with an ice cream) only to find that they had sold out of all of my favourites and even those not-so-favourite fake pineapple ones. But there was no dampening of this warm-heartedness. That happiness that comes from the feeling of a warm breeze on bare arms - even as I walk past 'warning signs' of sun burnt, angry families who've had a little too much of a good thing.
That longing for warmth and sunshine is a longing for something we get a small taste of - every now and then - of heavenly perfection. Of a happiness that fills our hearts and our senses. That lifts our cares and burdens (at least for a little while - until we have to face the inevitable 'buyer's remorse' as we see the unopened, unassembled BBQ we purchased the day before the sun disappeared). This God-given joy of sunshine highlights a longing we have for the light and warmth of the presence of God with us. When the apostle John saw a vision of the future home of those belonging to the Lamb he saw that 'the city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendour into it.'
There'll be no fear of sunburn or sun-loss in that endless 'summer'.
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